Powerfully evil active learning

Power is a constant feature of life, and evil is a constant possibility. In politics, power and evil combined have produced the worst moments of human history. This article concerns ways to confront the conjoined topics of power and evil through powerfully evil active learning. It proposes three active learning design mechanisms – the manipulative actor, the evil twist and turning the screw – that were developed over a decade of teaching roughly 10,000 students. Each mechanism can be used to highlight different manifestations of power: manipulative language, the discursive construction and use of value-laden binaries, and the systemic erosion of values under institutional pressure. Such exercises unavoidably teach students about some of the manifestations of power, but reflection after the exercises on the intellectual and moral detachments involved in the exercises can also teach about the nature of ‘extensive evils’ – the mass harms sustained by many people over time. The point of such exercises is to ‘prebunk’ manipulative abuses of power and to promote student intellectual and moral autonomy. The article closes on two practical risks and the design responses developed to manage them.